Want IE8 Beta 2? You May Have To Jump Through Hoops

Mark Long, newsfactor

MicrosoftInternet Explorer

For Windows XP users with IE8 Beta 1 already installed, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and IE8 Beta 2 would become permanent, said Jane Maliouta, the deployment product manager for IE8 at Microsoft. "You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won't be able to uninstall them," she said.

Incompatibility Issues

Developers will need to be careful because IE8 Beta 2 will not work with several key services, applications and add-on programs, including certain versions of the Windows Live Mail. IE8 Beta 2 users also are currently unable to view movies on demand from Netflix, though Microsoft said the two companies are working to resolve the compatibility issue as quickly as possible.

Maliouta strongly encouraged those who have already downloaded IE8 Beta 1 to follow several steps before installing the new Beta 2 version. First uninstall the Beta 1 version and SP3 for Windows XP, followed by reinstalling SP3, and only then install IE8 Beta 2.

"If you have IE8 Beta 1 installed, the IE8 installer will automatically uninstall any earlier versions and then install the latest version of IE8 Beta 2 for you," Maliouta said. "You will be prompted to reboot twice. The first reboot is to remove IE8 Beta 1 from your machine and the second one to complete the IE8 Beta 2 installation."

According to Microsoft, IE8 Beta 1 was only intended for use by developers. Consumers running Windows XP need not worry about downloading IE8 Beta 2 so long as they did not install Beta 1.

However, consumers testing IE8 Beta 2 on their Vista-enabled machines must jump through a few hoops should they decide to revert to IE7. According to Microsoft, they'll have to click the Start button, type "Programs and Features" in the Start Search box, and click Programs and Features in the Programs list. Then in the Tasks pane, they'll need to click "View installed updates," select IE8 Beta 2 and then click "Uninstall."

Dueling Releases

The relatively unpolished state of IE8 Beta 2 is not all that unusual. Early versions of Firefox 3 likewise were subject to various compatibility issues and performance limitations.

Both Mozilla and Microsoft are doing all they can to gain browser market share. For example, Mozilla's recent release of its "experimental" Ubiquity plug-in is an attempt to steal some of the thunder from some new features destined for IE8, called Accelerators and Web Slices. For its part, Microsoft has already added several new capabilities to IE8 Beta 2 that mimic what Firefox 3 already has on tap, including the rival browser's so-called "AwesomeBar."

Mozilla's campaign to set a world software-download record for Firefox 3 earlier this year has increased the pressure on Microsoft to turn the tide. Though the software giant has stabilized its market-leading share of the browser market in the last three months, Microsoft's numbers have fallen seven percentage points in the past 12 months, and 24.5 percentage points since August 2005, according to a new global survey conducted by Janco and the IT Productivity Center.

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Comcast Limits Homes To 250GB in New Public Policy

Steve Bosak, newsfactor

Comcastnetwork congestion

The new policy was posted on Comcast's Web site early Friday, and the meter starts running on Oct. 1.

Charlie Douglas, director of corporate communications for online services, said, "The amount of data measured is aggregate monthly usage of uploads and downloads."

The amended service policy states in part: "It's no secret we've been evaluating a specific monthly data usage or bandwidth threshold for our Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customers for some time." The threshold is high for the majority of Comcast users.

Examples of what a 250GB limit equates to are cited in the amendment, such as sending 50 million e-mails, downloading 62,500 songs, 125 standard-definition movies, or uploading 25,000 high-resolution digital photos. The policy says the median monthly usage for residential Comcast customers is 2GB to 3GB per month.

Bandwidth Hogs

Some observers say Comcast has a reasonable argument. The company has expanded rapidly into business and residential phone service, meanwhile maintaining its large cable-television enterprise. There is only so much available bandwidth at any given time.

Comcast is moving data, voice and television and high-definition video over the same pipes. It only takes a few peer-to-peer file-sharing applications to cause unexpected congestion.

Making Policies Public

Comcast's previous efforts to address the problem brought a rebuke from the Federal Communications Commission. Comcast was caught throttling down the connections of BitTorrent P2P users on its network without their knowledge.

When the matter came before a congressional subcommittee, Comcast admitted to the practice and was ordered to stop gating individual connections. The FCC and Congress felt the targeting of individual accounts without notification was the main issue.

In its new policy Comcast is not limiting bandwidth on the sly, nor is it keeping its policies private. In fact, the company is posting a banner ad on its home page and sending flyers detailing the new policy to each of its customers in September. The company has also posted suggestions for using download-metering software that will track usage, much like the minute counters on cell phones.

Douglas emphasized, "This does not affect our commercial customers." Comcast has been aggressively moving into unified data services for commercial accounts, and some, especially those involved in backup and disaster recovery, could go over the 250GB limit, but that service is separate from residential accounts, said Douglas.

"We need to remember that the amount of usage we are talking about, more than 250GB a month, does not apply to more than 99 percent of our customers. So the less than 1 percent who are notified today receive a phone call from Comcast asking them to moderate their usage, which the vast majority of them do voluntarily," Douglas said.

Other broadband providers are also likely to publicize limits.

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Microsoft buys ciao.com to boost e-shopping search

By Georgina Prodhan

MicrosoftciaoEurope

"We call it 'instant answers'," said John Mangelaars, head
of Microsoft's consumer and online business in Europe. "I hope
it's getting very clear that we've very serious about EMEA," he
added, speaking to Reuters by telephone.

Internet search is dominated by Google, which has 62
percent of the global search market and 79 percent in Europe,
according to Web usage tracker ComScore.

Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9
percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo. In Europe,
Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and
Russia's Yandex.

But Mangelaars said buying ciao was an important step
in Microsoft's attempt to distinguish itself by providing
search results more useful to consumers, particularly shoppers,
than those thrown up by a Google search.

For example, results of a Microsoft search for a particular
camera model could include which prices were available from
which retailers, and maps of where those retailers were, rather
than just links to the manufacturer's and retailers' websites.

The acquisition follows those of Norwegian enterprise
search company Fast for about $1.2 billion early this year and
shopping-and-auction site jellyfish for an undisclosed sum
last year.

CASH BACK

Caio is active in seven European countries and attracts
19.6 million unique visitors per month in Europe, more than
twice as many as rival kelkoo, according to ComScore,
thanks to its large network of members who contribute product
reviews.

To attract more users, Microsoft also plans to reward
consumers who buy products through its shopping sites by giving
them cash back, extending a trial started in the United States
a few months ago.

"Google's trying to do all your search needs. What
Microsoft is doing with this kind of acquisition is saying:
'We're going to be very good at the commercial side of search,
the shopping'," said Forrester principal analyst Rebecca
Jennings.

Herve le Jouan, ComScore's managing director, Europe,
agreed. "Doing this shopping thing, I think, is a good move,"
he said, but cautioned that acquisitions alone would never
bring Microsoft close to Google's market share in search.

"Nobody is able to compete right now with Google so there
is nobody to buy to compete with Google," he said.

Microsoft's Mangelaars acknowledged the distance Microsoft
had to cover, especially given the commercial edifice rapidly
being built by online advertisers whose models depend on
Google's particular view of the Web.

"It's a race," he said, "but we also believe it's very
early days in search technology."

Microsoft's offer of $17.50 per share betters an earlier
proposal by media-focused U.S. buyout firm Quadrangle Group to
acquire the company for $15.50 a share, and represents a slight
premium to Greenfield's closing price of $17.25 on Thursday.

share pricemarket researchers

(Additional reporting by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty in
Bangalore; Editing by Quentin Bryar and Sue Thomas)

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Veoh Decision May Not Let Google Off the Hook

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor

copyright lawsU.S. District CourtSan Jose

IO Group's suit is not unlike Viacom's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube. In fact, MySpace, MP3tunes, Hi5, Stage6 and several other sites are facing similar battles over user-generated content.

Could this ruling be a boon for these sites? Or is the ruling merely an isolated incident in a California trial court? Google and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are betting on the former.

Web 2.0 Required Reading

EFF Legal Analyst Fred von Lohman said the ruling should be required reading for the executives of every Web 2.0 business that relies on user-generated content. The key to Veoh's victory, he said, was its scrupulous attention to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbors.

"Veoh responded to compliant DMCA takedown notices on a same-day basis, it notified users of its policies against copyright infringement, it registered a copyright agent with the copyright office, it terminated users who were repeat infringers and blocked new registrations from the same e-mail addresses, it used hashes to stop the same infringing videos from being uploaded by other users," von Lohman wrote in the EFF blog.

As von Lohman sees it, Judge Lloyd's ruling debunks some of the favorite arguments of entertainment-industry lawyers and gives YouTube a boost in its billion-dollar battle against Viacom.

YouTube's Repeat Infringer Dilemma

But the Google case is a little different. While the California court did spell out that there is no affirmative obligation for service providers to track users or police their sites, the context of that quote was based on tracking down repeat infringers.

To qualify for safe harbor, Web sites are required to cancel the accounts of users who repeatedly submit infringing content. The court did not address to what level a Web site is required to affirmatively look for repeat infringers.

User-generated content sites could terminate a user's ID, but that user can simply register under a different screen name. Untangling the issue can be difficult, according to Mary Jane Frisby, a partner in the Indianapolis, Ind., office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and a member of the firm's intellectual property department.

But there is a dividing line in safe-harbor provisions.

"If infringement is rampant right and left and anyone ought to be able to see it, but you don't do anything about it, then maybe you don't have safe harbor," Frisby said. "These clips on YouTube are from 'South Park' and 'Saturday Night Live.' Things that one can simply look at and say 'that must belong to somebody'."

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Microsoft to drop $486 million for European shopping site

By Mike Ricciuti, CNET

Update at 5:58 a.m. PDT:Ciao is based in Munich, Germany. Greenfield Online is based in Wilton, Conn.

Microsoft said Friday it has reached a deal to acquire Greenfield Online, the owner of consumer shopping sites, for about $486 million.

Greenfield's properties include Munich, Germany-based Ciao, one of the leading price-comparison and online-shopping sites in Europe. Ultimately, Microsoft said, Ciao's technology platform, online community, and merchant relationships will be integrated with Microsoft's Live Search.

Ciao features consumer reviews and ratings. Microsoft said that, according to ComScore, Ciao has more than 26.5 million unique visitors per month across seven countries, who have generated more than 5 million product reviews.

The deal calls for Microsoft to commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Greenfield for $17.50 per share, or roughly $486 million.

Wilton, Conn.-based Greenfield, which acquired Ciao in 2005, also owns an Internet survey business, which Microsoft plans to sell off. Microsoft said it has already secured an unnamed buyer for that unit.

Both transactions are expected to close during the fourth quarter.

Microsoft's offer for Greenfield trumps an earlier deal. In June, Greenfield said it was in takeover discussions with the Quadrangle Group and had secured an agreement to be acquired for $15.50 per share.

In a press release issued on Friday, Greenfield said that "immediately prior to entry into the merger agreement with Microsoft it had terminated its previously announced merger agreement with affiliates of Quadrangle Group LLC."

In connection with the termination of that deal, Greenfield said it is required to pay Quadrangle a $5 million fee.

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Comcast to make monthly Internet use cap official

Comcast CorpInternet service provider

On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.

Comcast has already reserved the right to cut off subscribers who use too much bandwidth each month, without specifying exactly what constitutes excessive use.

"We've listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage.

"We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily," the company said.

Comcast floated the idea of a 250 gigabyte cap in May and mentioned then that it might charge users $15 for every 10 gigabytes they go over, but the overage fee was missing in Thursday's announcement.

Curbing the top users is necessary to keep the network fast and responsive for other users, Comcast has said.

Comcast stressed that the bandwidth cap is far above the median monthly usage of its customers, which 2 to 3 gigabytes.

Very few subscribers use more than 250 gigabytes, it said. A user could download 125 standard-definition movies, about four per day, before hitting the limit.

The cap is also above those of some other ISPs. Cox Communications' monthly caps vary from 5 gigabytes to 75 gigabytes depending the subscriber's plan. Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing caps between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes in one market. Frontier Communications Co., a phone company, plans to start charging extra for use of more than 5 gigabytes per month.

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Microsoft to buy Web-comparison shopping sites

Microsoft Corp

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker says the acquisition of Greenfield Online Inc., which owns Ciao, a collection of European price-comparison, shopping and consumer reviews sites in seven countries and languages, will boost its search presence in Europe.

The company says the Ciao sites get more than 26 million unique visitors a month and so far has generated more than 5 million product reviews.

Greenfield shareholders will get $17.50 a share, Microsoft said Friday. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Microsoft lags market leader Google Inc. in search traffic and Web advertising revenue. In recent months, the company has focused on improving its sites for searches that lead to shopping and travel.

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